(upbeat music) - It is great to have you take time out from writing books to sit and talk about writing books because at the pace you're going, I mean, I just can't imagine you have time for anything else, and somehow you've managed to squeeze all these other things in too.

- Well you know what's interesting is I love talking.

I began my career as an actor.

Like that's where I started, at a place called Virginia Tech, and I auditioned for plays and didn't get cast.

And I said, "Okay, well I gotta figure this out."

And so I began writing plays to cast myself.

So the writing happened as a result of that.

- Yeah, yeah.

The range of things that you're writing about is really broad.

Talk about how you get inspiration for these books, and for each one, what's the thing you're trying to accomplish with it?

- I think ultimately, as Langston Hughes said, I'm trying to distill my human heart into a few words on the page.

And sometimes that heart is filled with longing and love, and so a love story or a love poem might come out.

Other times, it's my 2-year-old who won't stop crying.

And so I play some jazz music and she stops crying.

And so I say, "Well, let me write a book about Duck Ellington and Mules Davis and teach her about jazz."

So it really is about what I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing, what I'm thinking, what I'm dealing with sort of the woes and the wonders of life.

And it comes out in various ways.

- Yeah, let's talk about the difference between writing poetry and writing stories.

I think of poetry as, of course, more subject to rhythm and pacing and the kind of things that you see in music more often, and of course stories can do that too.

But it's a very different process.

- Oh, absolutely.

I mean, you think about it like this.

With prose, you have a lot of words at your disposal.

- You can go on as long as you want.

- With poetry, you have to capture sort of the heavy things that are happening in just a few words.

And so it requires more conciseness.

And so if you look at a page of poetry versus prose, there's more white space on the poetry page.

And I believe that's so that the reader can take that spiritual journey.

It's not just about the words that are there, but it's about the words that aren't there that sort of challenge us and make us pay attention to what's happening in our lives in the world.

- That's an interesting way to think about that.

I've always thought that the best music often is about the notes that aren't there.

Miles in particular, right?

You don't have to play every note.

Some of them are understood, I guess poetry is the same.

- I mean, look, you could tell, and I did.

I told a woman that I loved her over and over and she didn't really pay attention.

I wasn't very cool.

I didn't get cool till very recently, and so I recited a poem to her.

I have never been a slave, yet I know I am whipped.

I have never been to Canada yet.

I hope to cross your border.

I have never traveled underground, yet the knight knows my journey.

If I were a poet in love, I say that with you, I have found that new place, where romance is just a beginning and freedom is our end.

And she married me.

- Oh, there you go.

- And so the poetry works.

- Right.

It worked.

I also wanna ask you about one of the kind of fun projects that you have, "Acoustic Rooster."

- "Acoustic Rooster."

- I love that, and Jazzy Jams.

- Which started here in Michigan.

- Is that right?

- In 2010.

I had written 10 books of love poems and I wasn't making a whole lot of money.

I wasn't able to provide for my family.

So I had jobs.

And I got a book deal for "Acoustic Roosters Barnyard Band" from a company in, I want to say Grand Rapids.

- Other side of the state.

- Called Sleeping Bear Press.

- [Stephen] Hell yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

- And they published "Acoustic Rooster," which is about a rooster that starts a jazz band with Thelonious Monkey and Ella Finch Gerald and Duck Ellington.

And so that became my first children's book in 2011.

And of course I've gone on to write many more, but that recently got turned into a cartoon, it's gonna be an animated special on PBS.

So that's pretty exciting.